Dutcher admittedly made compromises for his documentary. Wolves have a strong aversion to humans -- one sign of their intelligence, because humans have killed 2 million of them in North America -- making it virtually impossible to film them closely in the wild. So Dutcher created his own wolf pack, caring for wolf pups to make them accustomed to human contact, and releasing them into a 25- acre enclosure in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains.

In all, the project consumed six years. Dutcher and his wife, Jamie, lived in the enclosure during the final three years, as the wolves formed a pack and reverted to nature.

The Dutchers witnessed a surprisingly sophisticated pack structure from alpha to omega. Alpha as in Kamots, the 130-pound alpha male who leads the pack, enforces the pecking order and commands the affection and subservience of his underlings. Omega as in Lakota, the name the Dutchers gave to the wolf at the bottom of the pack's order. He's forced to eat last, and he's the whole pack's whipping boy.

The pack members in between include Matsi, the beta (second in command) wolf, who functions as the pack's peacemaker and mentor to the young, and Chemukh, a dark female who seems destined to be an omega but instead is selected by Kamots as his mate and alpha female.

"Wolves at Our Door" is on a par with the "National Geographic Specials," which are still the hemi sphere's most prestigious wildlife films. The resemblance is all the stronger because the narrator is Richard Kiley, the familiar voice on so many National Geographic films.

Dutcher's film ends movingly, with the animals trucked to a new enclosure on Nez Perce tribal land in Idaho, and with Jim and Jamie Dutcher saying their goodbyes, one wolf at a time.

Viewers might wonder why the pack wasn't simply released into the wild. It's because these wolves lacked a fear of humans. That's a shortcoming with fatal consequences for the wolves.

-- "Unauthorized Biography: Milo -- Death of a Supermodel" (10 tonight on Comedy Central) is an intermittently amusing mock documentary about a cadaverous, self-destructive model who'd been a disco party animal and punk icon in the New York of the 1970s and early 1980s. Written by Kent Jones and Guy Nicolucci, the spoof of stuporous times in the Big Apple features appearances by Cyndi Lauper, Deborah Harry, fashion designer Todd Oldham, talk show host Joe Franklin and several other luminaries who -- recall "Milo."

Lizz Winstead, one of the show's producers, plays the barely coherent Milo in a film clip before Milo was assassinated by a sociopathic failed model.

It's a production with as many misses as hits, but I do like this from Deborah Harry: "What really galls me personally right now is she's dead, and she has a show."